Sunday Updates

April has been a fairly slow month for me in terms of sales. The first quarter was great, but April hasn’t been so good. I spent quite a bit of time and energy working out a deal that didn’t go through, so it’s been a bit of a scramble the last few days to close some deals to meet my projections.

  • I had agreed to a fairly large sale (close to 6 figures) and had even signed the agreement that was approved by the buyer. Unfortunately, the buyer tried to change terms at the last minute, and the deal didn’t go through. Goes to show that no deal is done until the money is in the bank, and you can’t always count on deals that are “approved.”
  • In addition to working on some deals last week, I re-launched EventPlanner.com. Tia Wood is working on a few outstanding issues with respect to search functionality, but I think the color scheme and graphics look pretty slick. If you have a moment, would you check it out and let me know if you see something funky?
  • If you live in the greater Boston area, would you have an interest in coming to a Boston domain investor meetup? I posted an article about it yesterday and would like your feedback. So far, feedback has been good.
  • I bought HolocaustHistory.com at NameJet last week. There were a bunch of bidders on it, and I wanted to make sure it didn’t go into the wrong hands. I am looking for a good organization to donate it to if you have any suggestions.
  • My trip to Las Vegas for TRAFFIC has been fully booked. It’s the first conference I’ve been able to attend in a year and a half. It will be nice to get away for a bit. If you want to meet up out there, let me know and we can coordinate.
Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

22 COMMENTS

  1. On HolocaustHistory.com, may I suggest donating it to eliewieselfoundation.org.

    Elie Wiesel is a concentration camp survivor and has made writing and teaching about the Holocaust his life’s work.

    The domain would be in good hands.

    • Elie Wiesel Foundation would be a great suggestion. The Holocaust memorial in Washington might be one as well or even contacting Yafa Eliach as she is a well respected expert in the field.

  2. Like Event planner! Since Events draw people, maybe put a picture on site of a crowd of people at an event now or later as they happen.

  3. Hi Elliot:

    Just a couple of thoughts on EventPlanner.com.

    I like the category breakdown on the right side. It is clear and effective.

    The logo with balloons doesn’t communicate to me that this might be a business event planning website. Balloons to me communicates birthday party, not corporate meeting. This is a small point but thought I would suggest a more business-like logo if you are targeting the enterprise market.

    Also, I like full screen websites rather than the large “margins” on the right and left. Just a thought.

    Great idea for a website. I am sure it will be successful for you.

    Have a great weekend.

    • I appreciate the comments. I think balloons are pretty ubiquitous and found at parties, weddings, bar mitzvahs…etc. Agree on the conference/meeting side, but it’s hard to come up with an icon that works for all.

      I am keeping the design in line with what’s worked for DogWalker.com and DogPark.com. Similar to DogPark.com (which has thrived and is well in the black less than 2 years after acquiring) the listings will be free. I may offer paid upgrades later on and possibly some lead gen for high end event planning. We’ll see…

      Want to get traction first.

      Thanks for the comments and compliments.

  4. Deals have been funky over the past year or so.

    Hard to get some done. Just had to cancel one while in escrow waiting for domain transfer.

    Note to domain owners: Sell if you have a buyer.

    Note to domain buyer: Make decent purchase price offers, close quickly and without contingencies.

    • Good suggestions.

      I also had a $20,000 deal last month where the buyer didn’t pay. There were a couple of things that made me leery about that deal, and I wasn’t surprised it didn’t work out.

      This one had gone through several rounds of negotiations involving multiple lawyers.

      Sh*t happens.

  5. Nice to see such a good domain turned into something solid. Eventplanner seems to have a lot of potential but aren’t you concerned about the ads leaking traffic to the competition? I can see one ad leading to a local party eventplanner in my locale (it’s in Europe though).

    • I donated one to them before… good idea.

      Unfortunately, the larger deal was almost certain to happen. The smaller $20k deal was the one I wasn’t confident in closing, even though that went to escrow.

  6. One of the largest Jewish museums is actually in Berlin, I was there last month it was several floors, modern and took me almost three hours to get through. They have an obelisk garden dedicated to the sufferers of the Jews of World War 2 named, “The Garden of Exhile”. Since 2001 it has been visited by 6.8 million people so certainly the visibility you want, check them out here:

    http://www.jmberlin.de

    Most people who frequent the museum understand English as descriptions are both in German and English so they might appreciate the domain name. A lot of info dedicated to the Holocaust here.

  7. Elliot,

    Would you happen to know if there are any domain meetups in New York? Travelling to Boston might be a possibility for me but if there is a meetup closer I’d rather to do because of the car rental costs. Do you know of any?

  8. > If you have a moment, would you check it out and let me know if you see something funky?

    Your domain is obviously a top concept, BUT, I’m always astonished when supposedly high-end sites run Google ads !!

    An old observation, but why on earth would you let your hard-won leads go offsite forever, usually to a similar service, perhaps for the return of a few cents ??

    Seriously dumb .. and unprofessional.

    • If I was an event planner or going into that space full time, it would be dumb.

      However, being able to passively earn hundreds of dollars a month isn’t so dumb. In addition, I will likely replace (or supplement) the Adsense with other advertisers pay monthly.

      As a comparison, DogPark.com is almost exclusively Adsense-supported, and with some direct ad sales and affiliate revenue, the website is well into the black about a year and a half after the (expensive) acquisition.

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